Open Doors Read online

  “How many people will be here for your class?”

  “Hard to say. Nearly twenty RSVPd on FetLife, but—”

  “On what?”

  Crap. “FetLife. It’s like a kinky Facebook.”

  Mel pulled out her phone and immediately started looking for it. “Wow. I…I never even thought…”

  “Just take things slow, okay?” Marcia didn’t want to feel responsible if her friend, in a fit of subfrenzy, nuked her marriage and jumped head-first into the deep end of the kink pool just to get her heart broken.

  “I will. I just want to learn. I feel like I’m in a different country. Or maybe the right country, finally.”

  “What?”

  Mel looked up from her phone, her cheeks beet red. “I’ve always had fantasies,” she softly confided. “About being tied up. Stuff like that. I never said anything to him though. I thought there was something wrong with me. Then I read some of the books the book club was talking about they’d read before I joined and…it was me. It was like someone opened up my head and took a look at my damn brains. Bestselling books, not just little one-off books that only five people ever read.”

  Marcia walked over to her. “You’re going to have to have some hard conversations with Mike. Don’t give up on him just yet. He might surprise you.”

  Mel’s eyes filled with tears. “No, I don’t think he will. That’s the sad thing.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Marcia had a lot of mixed feelings about Mel sitting in on her class. It was not uncommon for people brand new to the lifestyle to experience epiphanies as they heard someone speaking about their fantasies out loud and assuring them there was nothing wrong with them for feeling like that.

  Unfortunately, she also knew the chances of an immediate happy ending for her friend being slim to none unless Mel’s husband decided to nut up and fight for his marriage and his wife.

  By the time Marcia was ready to start the class, with twenty-three students including Mel, Mel had calmed herself and pulled herself together. As Marcia went through her PowerPoint presentation, covering relationship dynamics, power exchange roles, and BDSM basics with a heavy emphasis on safety and finding what works for a particular individual, she could see the lights dawning for many of the students.

  Including Mel.

  Derrick had arrived by the time class ended. He was waiting out in the office and chatting with the volunteer manning the front desk for them that evening.

  Derrick offered Mel a hug. “How you doing?” he asked her.

  “Better and worse. I didn’t think that was possible at the same time.”

  “You ready for dinner?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure if I’m going to be good company tonight.”

  “It’s okay,” Marcia assured her. “They’re friends of ours. Kinky friends. At some point in their lives, they all were where you are now, in some degree or another.”

  “My mind is just…blown. Seeing stuff as fiction is one thing. It’s like watching Ancient Aliens on TV and then suddenly finding yourself standing face-to-face with a real alien.”

  “That’s a pretty accurate summation,” Marcia said. “If you think your mind’s blown now, wait until later when we bring you back here.”

  “Part of me doesn’t want to come,” Mel admitted. “I already think I know how this story is going to end. I’m not sure I want to hasten the inevitable.”

  “We won’t force you to come back here,” Derrick assured her. “We can take you back to our place so you can get your car.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant.” She took a deep breath. “I suspect after I have dinner with your friends and then come back here, I’m really not going to want to go home or keep settling for what I have now.”

  “You might be right about that,” Marcia gently said. “But like you also said, life is short. If you’re miserable, and he refuses to see there’s a problem, or he doesn’t think there’s a problem, you have to decide if you’re going to be happy living like that for the rest of your life, accepting him for who he is now, or if you want to move on.”

  “I think I already know the answer to that,” Mel said. “To be honest, I think that’s been the obvious solution staring me in the face for a long time now and I didn’t want to admit it. It’s like this is the last piece of proof I needed, on top of everything else, that my marriage isn’t working. I can sit there and lie to myself all I want, but I’m still young and I have a husband who I have to beg to touch me. And who more often than not says no.”

  “You sure it’s not something medical going on with him?” Derrick asked.

  “I’m going to try one more time to get him to go to a doctor, and to go to counseling with me. I already suspect what the answer will be. So I have one more question?”

  “Yeah?” Marcia asked.

  “Do you know a good divorce attorney?”

  Derrick held up a finger. “Funny you should mention that.”

  * * * *

  Ed was at dinner that night. Marcia had made sure to text Ed ahead of time to let him know what was going on, and to save them seats near him and his wife, Hope.

  As Marcia thought, Mel started unburdening herself on the attorney, who listened thoughtfully to everything she had to say.

  By the time dinner was over, Ed had given her a business card. “Once you make a decision, let me know. It won’t be my first kinky divorce. Nothing you say can shock me, and I’m pretty adept at sidestepping any accusations the other party wants to toss at my client. You don’t have any children, so that simplifies things.”

  “I don’t want to gouge him, either,” she said. “If he won’t work things out with me, I just want out.”

  “You need to protect your interests, though. You can’t just walk away from what’s rightfully yours. We don’t have to engage in a protracted mud fight, but we also need to make sure you’re not giving things away that don’t need to be abandoned to him.”

  “I guess we’ll have to sell the house.”

  “Likely, unless he or you can refinance and pay the other off for the equity you’ve built up.”

  “No, and that’s going to piss him off.” Marcia watched as Mel stared down at her empty plate. “I always regretted not having kids. Now, I have to admit, I’m glad we don’t. How sad does that make me?”

  “It makes you human,” Marcia assured her. “Completely, utterly human.”

  * * * *

  While Derrick paid their check, Mel went to the restroom. Marcia used that time to confer with her husband. “My instincts are telling me what’s going to happen.”

  He slowly nodded. “You can offer her our spare bedroom, if she needs it, if it even comes up. Let’s see if she can knock some sense into Mike first. It’d be a shame for him to let fifteen years slip away just because he’s happy in his damn rut.”

  “Selfish bastard,” she muttered. “I thought he was better than that.”

  “Don’t be so quick to judge. I know she’s your friend, but there’s always another side to things. You know that. He might surprise us all.”

  “Should we invite them over for dinner?”

  “Play it by ear. Offer it to her, if she wants. Maybe hearing all of this from someone else will help him.”

  She arched an eyebrow at Derrick. “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “Because I’m not. You know the odds as well as I do.”

  Back at the club, the evening was just getting started. There were already a few people there, including their friends from dinner. Derrick left Mel in Marcia’s capable hands and went to go check on things in the office and to make sure nothing had been overlooked.

  Mostly, he wanted to give the two women privacy. He suspected Mel would need to talk to Marcia.

  The odds were, when one partner “came out” as kinky and the other not only didn’t, but resisted the change, it wouldn’t end well at all. Having the couple over for dinner to talk wouldn’t be much help if Mike didn’t want to try to change
and meet his wife at least halfway in the middle.

  It wasn’t uncommon for the resistant partner, who’d grown quite comfortable in their rut, to get angry and dig their heels in even farther. They took their partner’s revelations as a personal affront to how they’d been living their life, or they took it to mean their partner had been lying to them all of those years. Sometimes both were true, sometimes neither.

  In the few rare cases he’d seen where the vanilla partner allowed their kinky partner to get their fix on, even then some of those had eventually flamed out. The ones who had survived and thrived as a result of the compromises, however, were almost always happy ones. As the vanilla partner grew more comfortable and realized they were getting a happier partner as a result, it allowed them more freedom to relax and realize it was a good thing. Every once in a while, the vanilla partner ended up joining in, in some small way, and having fun, too.

  But…

  When he finished in the office, on his way over to the kitchen area he glanced at the table where Marcia and Mel were now sitting and talking. Mel was watching Kel preparing to suspend Mallory as Marcia obviously narrated the process.

  The look on Mel’s face, the complete recognition that she was finally where she belonged, nearly broke Derrick’s heart.

  He knew that look.

  And he knew it meant their friend would wade through an emotional ocean of crap before emerging on the other side of it. He wished he could spare her that journey, but it was one that countless others had made before her. She would survive it, too.

  There were no shortcuts, no matter how easy he wanted to make it on her, or on any of them.

  * * * *

  By the end of the evening, Marcia sensed the quiet resignation in her friend. “I’ve been doing this for ten years now,” she told Amelia. “Well, we’ve been running the club for ten years. We’ve been involved in the lifestyle longer than that, pretty much our whole time together. I’ve seen nearly all of the most common options play out. And I can see it in your face.”

  There were still a couple of people playing, but it was less than an hour before closing time. Amelia looked sad. “I want to be happy. I’ve forgotten what it’s like.”

  “Life is way too short not to be happy. Believe me, we’ve seen that personally.”

  Mel nodded.

  “Anything else you want to ask?”

  “Yeah. How good is your friend the divorce attorney?”

  Marcia laid a hand over Mel’s. “He’s very good. And we’ll be there for you. You’re not alone.”

  “I have a feeling I will be alone when Mike gets done talking to all my friends and family.”

  “You’re not. And you don’t know if he’ll try that or not.”

  She snorted. “No, I know. I feel it. I wish I was wrong, and I’ll still try, but I feel it.”

  “Well, if he does, and they abandon you, it proves they weren’t good friends to start with. This group, they’re like a family, and they’ll welcome you in with open arms.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “I am. I’ve seen it happen before. The people who walk through these doors become adopted family.”

  “Well, what do I have to lose?” Mel said. “I’m miserable now, and it won’t change unless I change. All I can do is try, and if he fights me, that’s it. I can’t live the rest of my life like this. Maybe he wants to, but I don’t. I feel like I was bait and switched in my marriage. He was completely different, worked to get me, and once he had me, he just…gave up trying to keep me. I’m not asking him to swing from the ceiling, I just want him to snuggle with me, make love to me. Hell, act like I’m more than a fucking roommate!”

  “Then it sounds like you have made up your mind.”

  She nodded. “I think I have. Now I just need to do it.”

  * * * *

  Later—or, rather early Sunday morning—as Marcia laid next to Derrick in their bed before they fell asleep, he asked, “How is Mel?”

  “I feel guilty that she’s probably going to be heading to divorce court.”

  “Instead of feeling guilty, feel good that you can be there for her as a friend. You didn’t cause her marital problems, you offered her a solution. You opened our door and our hearts to her. That’s what friends do.”

  “I bet he ends up blaming us and the club for this.”

  “Again, the fault is with their marriage, not what we do.” He tightened his grip on her, his arms around her. “Go to sleep, baby. I’m tired, and she’ll probably be calling you tomorrow.”

  “You think?”

  “Yes. And then you can offer her our spare bedroom.”

  “Thank you.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “The ten years we’ve spent running the club have taught me a lot.”

  “So did that gallbladder attack.”

  He snorted. “Yes, that taught me you are a mean, mean woman.”

  She gently poked him in the ribs. “That’s because you scared a year off my life, buddy. I thought you were dying of a heart attack.”

  “That makes two of us. I’m sure that it was a comfort to the paramedic, whose shoes I puked all over in the ambulance, when he found out it was just my gut, not my heart, that was faulty.”

  “Hey, it means we have Kel as our partner now. And we can finally expand the club like we’ve talked about doing.”

  “Yeah, I know. And with one more new member, we’ll need to expand. That’s why we’re here.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Now…

  Thursday night, everyone stood in the new space and looked around. The smell of fresh paint hung in the air, not an unpleasant odor at all.

  “Well?” Derrick asked. “Think we’re ready for business tomorrow night?”

  New play equipment, including another bondage suspension frame, and a couple of couches for aftercare along the walls, and lots of room. The original play area would be reserved for rope and rigging and lighter play. They could keep the lights slightly brighter on original side as a result, and keep the social area more easily separated from the play areas. They’d also boxed in the large bay door to insulate it by adding a fake wall with a regular door in it. The bay door could be raised and the smaller door opened for access, but it would help keep the AC costs down as well as insulate for sound.

  And for when they didn’t need the extra space, such as when holding a small class or a meeting and not an open play session, they’d rigged a heavy, dark curtain of quilted fabric to cover the doorway. They could keep the AC off on the “new” side and only run it on the “old” side, as they were thinking of it. Normally, the curtain would be held open with two large, black satin decorative tasseled ropes. Or they could even use the new side for a class while smaller events could be held in the original side.

  “I like it,” Seth said. “I think it’s great.”

  The walls had been painted in a black-and-grey mottled faux finish that mimicked stonework, nearly identical to the paint job in the old side. Sconce lights on the walls provided enough lighting without it being too harsh. A couple of fake potted palms strung with white Christmas lights provided more indirect lighting so they didn’t need the bright house lights glaring in the space. There was also now an upstairs storage space that wouldn’t be open to the public. Below that, several new changing alcoves, as well as locker space.

  Leah and Marcia stood with their arms around each other’s waists. “I think Kaden would have loved it,” Leah said, a wistful smile on her face. “This was our second home for so long. You all were closer to us than actual family. Especially in my case.” The loving smile on her face as she looked at Seth nearly broke Derrick’s heart. “And it’s still our second home, and family.”

  Seth draped an arm around her shoulders as he leaned in to kiss her on the forehead. “Yes, it is, sweetheart.”

  They all felt silent, a collective sigh escaping them.

  “We couldn’t have done this without everyone’s help,” Derrick said.
“I don’t just mean this week. I mean throughout the years.” He held a hand out to his wife and slave, who released Leah to step over to his side. “Starting with you, sweetheart.” He kissed her. “I know you thought I was crazy when I said I wanted to do this—”

  “I still think you’re crazy,” she said with a smile.

  When everyone quit laughing, Derrick continued. “But thank you,” he said. “I know it’s been a lot of damned hard work over the years. It’s a lot better now with Kel and Mallory as partners in this. I know that, long-term, this will keep going. Keep being a place for the community, even if we ever have to step aside. That’s all I ever wanted. I hated having to go through a party list and try to decide who had to get left off because we didn’t have room. Especially as more of those people grew to be even closer friends. I wanted to be able to teach others, have a safe space. And we did it.”

  Derrick looked down at Marcia. “Twenty years of being with me. And ten years of this place. You must really love me.”

  “Or it’s Stockholm Syndrome,” Tilly snarked from where she stood between Cris and Landry.

  He grinned. “Maaaybe.”

  Their friends seemed to be waiting for him to say something else. He felt he owed them more, too, but wasn’t sure what to say.

  “I don’t think I have the words to express my love and gratitude to you all,” he finally said. “You’ve been there for us, for the club, for each other. This is a family. This club is our ‘child,’ as weird as it sounds. And I’m glad we gave birth to it. It took a village to raise this child. Our whole, crazy damn tribe. And I couldn’t be more thankful for having you all in our lives. Thank you.”

  Hugs were exchanged, good-nights were said, and, finally, it was just Marcia and Derrick left in the space. He locked the door behind everyone and then turned to Marcia, who’d followed him out into the office.